Oh, the Weather Outside is Frightful
…but in Taiwan, it’s so delightful.
I come from a state where the summers are hot and the winters are biting. We have a little “Weather Boy” electronic indoor and outdoor thermometer (the kind with the satellite connection) that gives you an ultra-accurate reading of the temperature, weather, forecast, humidity, time, etc. It’s really handy for those days you just can’t bring yourself to turn on the television and find the forecast on a 24-hour news channel’s ticker. He’s a cute lil’ guy, but I think he’s a bit of an exhibitionist. Does anyone really go around wearing those lil’ skivvies just because it’s hot? Or does he think everyone can just pop off down to the pool whenever they want?
I digress. The point I wanted to make is that I have, over the years, gotten very comfortable with frigid, well-below-freezing weather. As I type this, it’s 20°F in our backyard. That’s about -6.6°C. It’s also quite windy. Now, I know that this weather is actually somewhat warm in other parts of the world, but for a little Taiwanese girl, whom I am taking out in it in half an hour or so, it’s brutal. Days that it’s below 50°F, she shivers. Whereas, if it’s anything above ~58°F, I’m quite comfortable. I find that 58° is the cutoff.
To illustrate the difference between winter here, and winter in Taiwan (to which I am most certainly looking foward), I submit the following two photos:
Strouds Run lake, frozen, Ohio 2008.
And then there’s…
Winter in Taiwan, location unknown.
See the difference? Striking, isn’t it? I have a feeling that I will be enjoying the winter months very much. Probably sitting on the porch, enjoying the weather, while the rest of my in-laws are inside, bundled up. Most Taiwanese don’t have furnaces, as it never really gets cold enough to use them. They mostly just use space heaters, especially in the bathroom. Can’t blame them, really. Those toilet seats can get cold.
It’s the summers that worry me.
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